The “Master of Eloquence and silence” between the Silence of Man and the silence of God.

Pastoral Letter of Metropolitan Silouan of Byblos, Botrys and dependencies on the 6th Anniversary of the Kidnapping of His Eminence Metropolitan Paul of Aleppo April 22, 2013-2019

 “God finished on the seventh day His work, which He had done:

and He rested on the seventh day of all His work, which He had made”
(Genesis 2:2)

       

Metropolitan Silouan (Musi).

“Metropolitan Paul of Aleppo is on an ecclesiastical mission.” This is an expression that occurred to me in the first days after Monday, April 22, 2013 (the day he was kidnapped), an expression that opened a window through which I have tried to explore the mystery of that great day, a day of God's work in the history of humanity.

Arriving at the threshold of the seventh year of this invisible “ecclesiastical mission,” we notice that infertility and drying up are encircling us; the infertility of hope and the drying up of inspiration. Consequently, you believe that time is uprooting hope from you, while you have no inspiration regarding how to defend the work of God within us and in us. In that case, how can you possibly defend your hope and your faith, and what may you say regarding this matter? An answer comes to you: “Keep silence!” But how could you manage, with silence, to defend your hope and your faith in this “ecclesiastical mission?”